2020 marked my fifteenth year as a professional artist. It also brought the chance to reflect and look back over my career so far. I wrote a series of newsletters that highlighted fifteen pivotal events, both large and small, related to my art practice.
Flash forward, it’s now 2026 and last year marked 20 years (wowza!). I have five more pivotal events to add to my list.
-
15 (ish) Pivotal events for 15 years
The year 2020 is a very special year for me--it marks my 15th year as professional artist. That means 15
-
Pivotal Event #1 “Your paintings are cool.”
At first, I didn't know that I was a painter. I had liked art classes as a child and had
-
Pivotal Event #2 “Can we buy a painting?”
There was no plan in my mind about where my painting was going in those early days--it was purely an
-
Pivotal Event #3 “Can you put up an art show?”
At that time the walls of Turk's and its sister cafe, Milano, featured art by local artists. One day, the
-
Pivotal Event #4 “I quit school.”
In 2005 I was still trying to decide what career I could embark on that would create financial stability for
-
Pivotal Event #5 “A place to make a mess.”
I had outgrown painting in my bedroom. I was now dragging my supplies up to our flat-top roof when the
-
Pivotal Event #6 “Brushes, Brayers, and Burnt Umber.”
One of the best things I ever did for expanding my technical knowledge was to take a job at Opus
-
Reflections and questions from pivotal events 4, 5, 6
Photo above: Colouring the whole world, circa 1986 How has contact with other people in your field helped you grow in
-
Pivotal Event #7 “Close calls and lost leaders”
Imagine you are a painter just starting out. You rent a studio and you go there every day, inspired to paint. You
-
Pivotal Event #8 “Dancing in the Street”
If you had been walking along 4th Avenue in Kitsilano one fall day in 2010, you might have seen an
-
Pivotal Event #9 “Keep on keeping on”
A few years into my fledgling career as a painter, I took another artist out for coffee. He was what I
-
Reflections and questions from pivotal events 7, 8, 9
Photo above: During my brief "representational" phase, circa 1986 What have you learned in your own life about the steps to
-
Pivotal Event #10 Inspired by Place
In my early days of painting I thought that I would become a cool, hard-edged abstract painter. Maybe you can picture what
-
Pivotal Event #11 Gifts from the Future
I'd like to share another example of how my brush sometimes seems to know what it's doing even when the rest
-
Pivotal Event #12 They said, “Yes.”
November of 2006 (photo above) was my first Crawl. I was fascinated by all the artists who took part and
-
Reflections and questions from pivotal events 10, 11, 12
Have you discovered what kind of creator you are? Has it been different than what you predicted when you first began
-
Artist Residencies & Pivotal Events
I know that recent events have brought the word "isolation" to the forefront of many people's minds. Many of us
-
Pivotal Event #13 (a) Saskatchewan
In the spring of 2013, I was fortunate to spend several weeks expanding my vision on the beautiful prairies of
-
Pivotal Event #13 (c) Basel
Ten years earlier I wouldn't have thought it possible. Yet here I was, opening my art show in Basel Switzerland,
-
Reflections and questions for pivotal events 13 a, b, c
Photo above: Art is where you find it #2. "Found" art on the prairies in southern Saskatchewan, 2013 How does location
-
Thank you
Greetings friends and art lovers, Over the last few newsletters I've been sharing stories of pivotal events in my life as
-
Pivotal Event #14 On My Wall
By no means do I consider myself to be a “collector” of art, but over the years a number of
-
Pivotal Event #15 Parts of the Whole (a)
Crammed into #15 are some other deeply influential art experiences, including viewing, reading, and listening. Each one has significantly improved
-
Pivotal Event #15 Parts of the Whole (b)
Continued: Crammed into #15 are some other deeply influential art experiences, including viewing, reading, and listening. Each one has significantly
-
Pivotal Event #15 Parts of the Whole (c)
The list goes on: Crammed into #15 are some other deeply influential art experiences, including viewing, reading, and listening. Each
-
Pivotal Event #15 Parts of the Whole (d)
You made it! Crammed into #15 are some other deeply influential art experiences, including viewing, reading, and listening. Each one
-
Reflections and questions for pivotal events 14 and 15
What do you have hanging on your walls? Have you ever made a surprising personal connection with a piece of
-
Pivotal event 16
A blank page, a fresh start. 2019 was a remarkable end of a chapter for me professionally. That year included my
-
Pivotal event 17 a & b
Inspiration from Outside In A) The Artist as Subject In January 2019, I became part of an artwork, thanks to The Decameron